


Lemonade

by deerynoise



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: F/M, dogmeat - Freeform, minutemen general
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 10:25:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6002374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deerynoise/pseuds/deerynoise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nancy Cooper (not the SS), was an ex-police officer that managed to survive the vault along with her neighbor, the Sole Survivor. In between helping search for her kid and learning the ways of the wasteland, Nancy takes up with the Minutemen, eventually being promoted to general. </p><p>She and Preston have a strong friendship, but did it start to feel like more than that over the past several months? Does Preston know just how much he's done for her, and vice-versa?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lemonade

Nancy felt oddly alone on this trip, and she couldn’t quite determine why. She was, technically speaking, not alone at all. She looked down to her side to see Dogmeat plodding along across the broken pavement in-step, panting happily and sniffing the air like a contented dog was apt to do. The sky was a little cloudy, but besides that, it was gearing up to be a pleasant day. They hadn’t seen any sign of trouble since dawn. So what felt off?

 

A half-hearted series of whistles sounded out from behind her.

 

Right. _That_ was it.

 

Preston normally found himself matching pace with her easily. This time, he had been rather quiet since they set off from Sanctuary, and kept lagging behind, even when she intentionally slowed down. What was going on?  Walking side by side and the occasional discussion along the road made the trips go by faster. Nancy didn’t know quite how much she enjoyed them until they were suddenly absent.

 

She noticed they were coming up to a rusted drawbridge. How much had they been walking? She could see the chipped paint of the SS Riptide and knew it must have been longer than expected. Once she thought about it, her back started to complain, too. Only more confirmation that they’d been marching for a while. It was rare that they’d walk this far without the occasional break.

 

Nancy turned to Preston. A good excuse to finally get a look at his face without the possibility of weirding him out. She shifted her rifle to one hand and pointed towards the wreckage, raising her voice a bit.

               “Want to take a load off?”

Preston seemed lost in thought. Not necessarily uncommon, but the way his brow furrowed and the way he started when she spoke must have meant it was something important. Even broken out of his trance, he still looked bothered.

               “Your back acting up?”

               “Yeah.”

               “Sure.”

They made their way down the makeshift walkways in silence. Dogmeat went ahead, and judging by his carefree demeanor, the raiders they cleared out a few weeks ago must have not come back. Nancy slid into the second floor cabin and wasted no time propping herself up on a chair in front of the windows. The floor was tilted (the whole boat was tilted) but she was just happy to sit down. Preston meandered in after her, looking at the table, but ultimately seemed too uncomfortable to sit himself. He eventually settled by leaning against the doorframe, looking outside.

 

 _Again with the quiet._ Nancy thought. It couldn’t have been her imagination at that point. There were always quiet days, sure. But silent for nearly half the week? Barely interacting? Barely smiling? She felt anxious. If there was a problem, Preston usually addressed it immediately. He wasn’t one to waste time, and he certainly wasn’t one to brood. What caught his tongue?

               “Penny for your thoughts?”

               “Huh?” Preston finally held her gaze. He smiled at her, but it didn’t feel entirely genuine.

 “A penny? Don’t you mean a cap for my thoughts?”

               “A single cap seems uh….little cheap.”

               “Wasn’t a penny even less?”

Nancy grinned wide and lopsided. Light reflected into her glasses, obscuring her eyes. She leaned back in her chair as far as she could, putting one foot up against one of the ship’s consoles.

               “…Not these days. Copper’s a pain in the ass to come by now.” Preston crossed his arms and looked at her from under his hat.

 “Is this your roundabout way of telling me you value my opinion?”

Her smile stayed and she pointed finger at him lazily, like a gun. She liked hearing the hint of a chuckle in his voice. It felt more appropriate to how he normally acted – open, and humoring her more than she really deserved.

“Bingo.”

He looked back outside again and his face went serious. She could see him nervously toying with the strap that slung his gun around his back.

               “It’s nothing important, general. I don’t mean to worry you about it.”

               “It’s just us, Preston. You don’t have to call me that here.”

He didn’t reply.

               “We’re friends too, remember. I can tell something’s bothering you. You look… cloudy.”

He raised an eyebrow this time. “Cloudy?” He was making another familiar face. It was the _what-the-hell-is-she-talking-about face_. Almost everyone adopted one after getting to know her. She was used to it. What she wasn’t used to was how oddly pleasant she had ended up finding his to be.

               “Yeah. You know…Cloudy.” She put one arm over the back of the chair, stretching. Preston frowned when he saw her wince.

“You’re normally so…uh, clear. About what’s going on with you. But now you’re all shut up and uh, chewing on your lip every five minutes. Whuh-what’s on your mind?”

“Are you playing detective with me now? Has Nick rubbed off on you?”

“Ha. I used to be a cop, remember?”

Preston sighed. It was a strange noise, coming from him. Nancy realized she might have never heard him do that before. Such a common expression of exhaustion, annoyance, whatever – and Preston was normally too determined or too pleasant to even dare.

               “I’ve been thinking on what we’ve been doing for the better part of a year now.”

               “Oh no.” Nancy laughed jokingly. Partially to distract herself from the ball that suddenly wanted to form in her stomach.

               “It’s nothing bad.” He said with a faltering smile. “There’s just been a lot to think about.”

It was Nancy’s turn to look away. She pretended to be interested in her boot.

               “Like what?”

Preston shrugged and adjusted his gun strap again. Dogmeat’s nails could be heard clicking against the boat as he ran past.

               “Like the Minutemen, for starters. I still don’t know why you decided to join up in the first place, let alone accept the insane amount of responsibility I ended up just dumping on your lap.”

 

 

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Sanctuary Hills would always be too lit up to see the stars. Even when all the house lights went out, the streetlamps kept the little neighborhood comfortably bright even in the dead of night.  Nancy had never really noticed or cared. She had always been distracted with something else. Work…housework…trying hard to be neighborly (even though suburban small talk was never her strongest skill)…recovering…prepping for a baby…recovering…

 

Now, she could use any distraction at all.  There wasn’t a loss of something to do, but directing her attention to any of it made her head hurt and throat close up.

Hell, she was too scared to even be lazing around on the roof of her _own_ house. She had numbly followed the minuteman and his party back because she didn’t know what else to do (Might as well make sure they were properly seen off, right? And it wasn’t like her neighbors were going to use those ruined houses anymore). She helped them get settled in, tinkered with whatever the man called Sturges asked her to do, and told Codsworth to lend his assistance if it was needed.  It had been about a week since they first arrived, and at present she was perched on the roof of one of the houses nearest to the bridge. There weren’t that many of them, and she had promised to be lookout until Sturges set up a turret. She had decided to lie on her back a while after she tried to remember the name of the people that used to live there.

 

The lazer musket was heavy in her hands. She had always been more of a pistol girl herself, but the musket had a scope and better range, so she said she would try it. It had been hours, and there was nothing to be seen besides seeing Sturges and Preston Garvey working and patrolling the perimeter respectively. Eventually Sturges had retired to what he made into a makeshift workshop, and Preston disappeared from view, too. The other three were probably asleep.

 

Everything felt very…dead.

 

As much as she was glad she didn’t have anyone to explain herself to, the quiet let Nancy all too easily get lost in her own head. She was told Diamond City was the next best place to try and start looking around the wasteland, but…

Well, she had barely survived the ordeal at Concord. Her experience made it easier, but she wasn’t stupid. This was an entirely different world from the one she was used to. Travelling such a great distance with no knowledge of the land would be suicide. She’d have learning to do first.

 

And she thought being kicked off the force would be the hardest struggle of her life.

 

Nancy sat up quickly. Something her back did not appreciate. She slouched forward and held the gun flat against her chest.

 

This really was an entirely different world, huh?

 

She stared blankly into the distance. It was both familiar and unrecognizable. The placement of the trees and river and roads made sense, but it was all burnt and rusted and dead. The thought about everything being dead was stuck in her mind, like an oil stain that wouldn’t wash out.

 

 If that was the case, what did it matter? Really?

 

Nancy inhaled sharply. The lazer musket made a soft, consistent hum in her hands.

 

Before the bombs, her job had been to uphold the law. Give her life to the people. What good would that be now, when there was no society to agree to law in the first place? No citizens to protect from injustice? She had woken up to everyone she knew being murdered and the one other survivor’s son being stolen. The people at Concord had been massacred by a group of violent freaks that had free reign of the place. Everything was fucked. So what did it matter? Clearly this wasteland didn’t have a chance. She was out of patience.

 

Her train of thought derailed when a short whistle was thrown her direction.  Nancy leaned to look over the edge of the roof. It was Preston.

               “Uh, hey.” He said. Nancy just stared at him expectantly.

               “That radio signal we set up works. I just got news of a farm settlement that called for Minutemen aid.” More silence from her end. Preston shifted on his feet, but continued.

               “I know you’ve already done a lot for us, and we appreciate it, believe me. But…well-“

               “Yeah?” She cut him off abruptly (on accident – never good when knowing when to interject, either). She felt bad not responding to someone so polite, she guessed.

Preston started, a little surprised and confused looking, but quickly got back to his point.

               “I know you’ve done a lot, but… Well, I’m the only Minuteman left. The farm isn’t very far, and I wondered if you’d be interested in tagging along. We could probably look out for each other, you know? Either way, I’m going. I just figured I’d ask.”

Nancy broke her eyes away to focus on nothing in particular. Did she really have time for something like this? She had her own problems to look out for. This nightmarish world was hardly real to her anyway, who cared about some random farmers?

 

She eventually turned her attention back to Preston. He clearly did, for whatever reason. And he looked pretty real.

 

She found herself agreeing before realizing the words were leaving her mouth.

               “Sure. I should get to know my way around, anyway.”

Preston was visibly relieved. He smiled. Something she noticed he did a lot after their first meeting.

               “Damn. Thank you. Thank you so much.”

 

They would leave immediately, which suited Nancy just fine. When she finally shimmied off the roof and met him on the ground, the four words he said to her next would stick in her memory for months.

               “Don’t worry. _I got your back_.”


End file.
